New Bond Director Announced

After a month of frenzied speculation, the official @007 twitter account hasrevealed its latest director and the replacement for Danny Boyle. Cary Joji Fukunaga is the lucky man, with his film slated for a worldwide release date of February 14, 2020. At least that’s Valentine’s day sorted.

Looking at Fukunaga’s own filmography paints an interesting picture. His work in television includes the critically acclaimed first season of True Detective, and Netflix’s recent period piece thriller the Alienist. The most famous of his films is another Netflix production, Beasts of No Nation, which netted Idris Elba a small fleet of awards for his performance. Lots of dark, brutal work on that CV, but that’s unlikely to calm the Boyle’s incensed fanbase.

Boyle’s term as the director of Bond 25 was, to be fair, comparatively brief. He confirmed his position in March of this year, supposedly to start after finishing a project with Love Actually screenwriter Richard Curtis. And yet, five months later, the Trainspotting director left the project over “creative differences”. Half the press (including us!) is chomping at the bit to find out what that actually means. The smart money is on arguments over the script, with Boyle’s longterm collaborator John Hodge writing one version and Casino Royale and Skyfall writers Neil Purvis and Robert Wade writing another. There’s been no official word yet.

The new release date might shed a little light on what’s currently happening backstage. Boyle left the project only three months before it was due to start shooting. The release date for his take on the film was November 8th, 2019. Given that Fukunaga’s probably just inherited the script-SNAFU that led Boyle to walk out (if that is what happened, SPECULATION AHOY!), it makes sense that he’d need a bit longer to sort out pre-production. We’ll see what results this particular shake-up will yield on release day.